This was baffling; but the Lord General said no more by way of explanation. For some little time he remained standing with his back to her, looking out at the rain. Maia, having drained her cup, tilted it in her hand and sat tracing the serpent pattern with one finger. Twilight was falling, but despite her disappointment over the way the afternoon had turned out, she felt in no hurry to return to Sencho's. The red glow of the stove seemed inviting her to linger before its warmth and let the wine finish its work.

"I'll give you a piece of advice, Maia," said Kembri suddenly, turning back into the room. "I'm speaking to you now simply as a man to a woman. Only a few slave-girls get as far as the upper city. That means they leave behind them far more who don't: and often that's the ruin of them, because they start forgetting where they came from and deceiving themselves into thinking they're exceptionally gifted-" he shrugged-"too clever to lose. The vital thing for adventurers-whether they're men or women-is never to forget that they're insecure. Self-deceit's fatal; it only leads to a dangerous sense of overconfidence. A girl in your position's entirely dependent on her wits. If they fail you've nothing to fall back on at all."

Suddenly Maia felt that they were indeed talking on equal terms.

"You're an adventurer, aren't you, my lord?"

A brief, surly nod. "You're young, Maia, but as far as I can see you're no fool. Just don't start thinking you're beyond the reach of disaster, and you might go a long way. I've already told you something about Otavis. I remember her when she was. a young, inexperienced girl like you. She gave us a lot of help, so we helped her. That's why she's free now, with enough money to set herself up in the style a high-class shearna ought to have."

As though about to go, he walked round the end of the bench towards the door. But his sudden, gratuitous advice, not unkindly spoken, had induced in Maia a typically spontaneous impulse towards the only kind of reciprocation at her command. Getting up, she stood with one bare arm outstretched along the back of the settle.

"You wouldn't care for something before you go, my lord?"

He turned, and from the shadows by the door looked

back at her where she stood in the orange glow from the stove.

"You little trollop! Are you importuning the Lord General?"

She giggled. "Well, without you help me, my lord, I can't get out of this dress, see?"

He hesitated a moment; then bolted the door.

Before she left he said, "Well, audacity can be an advantage-sometimes-to a girl like you. You've still got a light heart, Maia, and a trick of making men go along with it. It's a natural gift; if I were you I should hold on to it as long as I can."

35: BAYUB-OTAL'S STORY

Stirring uneasily, Sencho woke little by little from a confused sleep to meet the dark-brown, slightly bloodshot eyes of the black girl gazing down at him. The sight of her, sedulous and compliant, was reassuring, recalling to him that he was now High Counselor of Bekla, wealthy and powerful, master of spies throughout the empire, possessor of information indispensable to Durakkon, Kembri and the Leopard regime. For a few moments, still half-asleep, the stupor of his fancy identified her with his own dark, hidden knowledge of plots and conspiracies running underground-plots which he would reveal and bring to ruin as soon as he was ready. This girl was his to do with as he might wish. But she, like his secret knowledge, was too valuable to him to part with or expend lightly. He was reliant on her: she was his security.

Laying her hands on his swollen body, the girl began to knead and caress him, murmuring gently the while in her own tongue, to the sound of which, though he understood not a word of it, he had become more and more used during these past days while she had attended him, easing the strange infirmity clouding both his mind and his luxury. Her soft speech was like a spell to assuage sickness and anxiety. Relaxing, he gave himself up to the soothing sense of being enfolded, body and mind, in her skilled attentions.

He could not remember exactly how or when the illness-if illness it was-had come upon him. Indeed, he did not believe himself truly ill, for he had suffered no

pain or fever; and of poison he had no fear. Not only were his cooks reliable but Terebinthia, he knew, was continually vigilant.

His lassitude and loss of appetite and lubricity, so it seemed, had stolen upon him by slow degrees, as gradually as winter. At first with impatience, he had felt in himself a disinclination for those pleasures which he had formerly found so enjoyable. His sleep, too-once a smooth refreshment after gratification-had become broken, and troubled by disturbing dreams-fantasies which tended to linger after awakening and from which he could find relief only in the black girl's ministrations.

In lucid moments he felt her presence as a danger. He must make himself do without her-sell her; have her killed, perhaps. She was a sorceress (for Senchor like many of the cunning and cruel with no belief in religion, was full of superstition and vague notions of necromancy). He had become addicted to her; less to her body-for the intermittent pleasure he could still derive from that was not exclusive of others-than to her mysterious, sustaining power, like a thick, dark fluid which seemed continually passing from her into himself. Sometimes this seemed to him an actual reality; she represented a kind of drug, at one and the same time euphoric and harmful, which he knew to be nocuous yet could not do without. When she was absent he became peevish, full of vague dread and at the mercy of all manner of nebulous fears. Yet when she returned, he felt her spirit scattering those fears only the better to dominate him itself. When he dined, solacing himself with no more than a shadow of his former gluttony, it was by her will; and when he gratified himself, whether by means of her body or another's, it was as though she led him out into a paddock and stood by while he carried out what her husbandry had appointed. Her pig to be fattened; her goat to perform its task.

There were days when he could recall clearly the instructions he had given to his various agents; and the suspects-each one of them-for whom he had laid snares. Chalcon was a dangerous center of disaffection. Tonilda, he had long been aware, was full of spies and counterspies, many already known to him. He had a list of names- more than fifty, ranging from servants, shopkeepers and secret messengers to disaffected barons-against whom treason could be proved. At the right time, when it suited

him, he would have them arrested. The right time would be when he had enough evidence against Santil-ke-Erke-tlis, whom he knew to be the Leopards' most influential enemy. The killing of Enka-Mordet had possibly been premature, he reflected. Perhaps, on the other hand, it had put a stop at the outset to what might otherwise have become a full-scale revolt. Other heldril, minded like Enka-Mordet, would not have failed, now, to realize that there was little which remained unknown to the High Counselor. Ah! but to have acquired his haughty, delicate young daughter for nothing-and without even Kembri's knowledge, too-that had been extremely clever. As soon as he felt better, he would apply himself properly to breaking her in. Some reason might be found for Terebinthia to whip her; yet there were subtler and more enjoyable forms of degradation; delightful inventions of his own, for which at the moment, however, he lacked true inclination or energy. For the time being he must confine himself to milder humiliations.

Once or twice, during these last few days, he had felt about to rouse himself sufficiently to hear and give instructions to some of the spies who had come to report to him. More often, however, he had let matters slide, simply telling Occula to see that they were paid and dismiss them until they were due to return.